FIGS. 1A and 1B depict ABS and side views of a conventional magnetic recording apparatus 10. The magnetic recording apparatus 10 may be a perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) apparatus or other magnetic write apparatus. The conventional magnetic recording apparatus 10 may be a part of a merged head including the write apparatus 10 and a read apparatus (not shown). Alternatively, the magnetic recording head may only include the write apparatus 10.
The write apparatus 10 includes a leading shield 12, a nonmagnetic gap layer 14, optional side shield(s) 15, a pole 20 and a trailing shield 30. The apparatus 10 may also include other components including but not limited to coils for energizing the pole 20. The pole 20 includes sidewalls 22 and 24 that form an angle 40 with the down track direction at the ABS. The trailing surface (top) of the pole 20 is wider than the leading surface (bottom) of the pole 20. The top (trailing) surface of the pole 20 also has a bevel angle θ1 with the yoke direction. Thus, a write gap of constant width, d, is formed between the trailing shield 30 and the pole 20. At some distance in, however, the trailing shield 30 rapidly increases in distance from the pole 20.
Although the conventional magnetic recording apparatus 10 functions, there are drawbacks. In particular, the conventional magnetic write apparatus 10 may not perform sufficiently at higher recording densities. For example, the conventional write apparatus 10 may be subject to increased wide area track erasure (WATER) issues. In particular, the field from the pole 20 during writing to a track may disturb data recorded on other tracks. This is undesirable. Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for improving the performance of a magnetic recording write apparatus 10.